The Mysterious World: March 19 - April 13
Masked Opening Reception, Friday, March 19, 2021 6.00 – 8.00 p.m.
‘The Mysterious World’ is a group showing featuring new works by Charles Keiger, Steve Moors, Melissa Sims and Mario Soria, four highly accomplished figurative artists whose work is linked by the imaginative, upside-down, surreal worlds that they create.
Charles Keiger, who is known for painting quirky characters, flowers and animals in dreamlike settings, has shifted his focus to the settings themselves. These new landscapes, which are peaceful, detailed and ordered, reflect his interest in early Renaissance art. Keiger is a hopeful story teller and his narratives painted in magical verdant hues are reminders of what happens when we look at the world in new ways and with new eyes.
Melissa Sims, who lived in Los Angeles before moving back to Atlanta, makes shiny, neon-colored paintings. She begins by appropriating images from pop culture; Hollywood, comic books and the American roadside, then reimagines them as fun new visions. This result is artworks that make us happy and serve as antidotes for the stresses of life.
Barcelona-based surrealist Mario Soria’s richly colored portraits—in quasi Old-Master-style—play mental gymnastics with the viewer. His paintings at first glance are simple portraits, but, look closer and the viewer is confronted with anomalies: three ears instead of two—an eye where a mouth should be. Presented in uber-Baroque style, the frames are decorated with objects and lacquered in brilliant hues. These are integral to the paintings as both are over the top, thought provoking and visually rich. A second body of work features people in room settings—again with something not quite right about them. This time the custom frames are smooth, curvaceous and voluptuous, with the look of porcelain. Painted in colors that remind us of the 1950’s and 60’s, the exaggerated forms of the pastel frames reinforce a sense of nostalgia.
Steve Moors, a British-American artist and illustrator based in New York, creates multi-faceted drawings on an iPad which are then printed on a German etching-paper at large scale. Each print is in a distinct color with the total number of large prints from a single drawing being five. The imagery, a blend of modern, pop and mid-century subjects overlaying primal, surreal and ethereal sensibilities, is intended to integrate with the viewer’s sense of self and stimulate a broader mindset. Because the works look like handcrafted etchings, albeit surreal and in dazzling colors, they also take on a historical twist, providing a visual joyride between periods, social commentary and humor.
